Asynchronous Work
Co-founder Mallory Ulaszek on why the work-when-you-can model is perfect for Week of the Website.
One of the most memorable —and first — conversations Kelsey and I had when we began our agency was about work-life balance. We wanted it to play a central role in not only how we structured the company as it grew, but also how it would impact our daily lives. Lines were drawn about the expectation of the typical 9-5 workday: We wouldn’t have it. If we wanted to work from France, we agreed we wouldn’t stand in the other’s way (and truth be told, it happened and worked!). We agreed that quality of life was directly proportional to the autonomy we kept over our schedules.
We also knew that extending this ethos to everyone we worked with as we designed Squarespace sites (clients, contractors, employees) would have to be woven into the framework of our company — which is a bit difficult since we subscribe to a full five-day workweek in our Week of the Website process. Yet we worked across multiple time zones (sometimes with clients across the globe, like New Zealand), so flexibility became an unavoidable part of our daily lives. On a personal level, I kept wildly different work hours than Kelsey, picking up the “morning shift,” with Kelsey frequently designing into the evening. We would often joke that between the two of us, we held down near 24/5 business hours.
As the company grew and the number of Squarespace sites we built per week increased, we knew that our tenacious team would need to understand, maintain, and enforce their own boundaries. This is admittedly a difficult dynamic to maintain. The most success has been with constantly communicating to the team to speak up, reminding them there would be no judgement and no explanation needed as to why someone had to step away. The other part of this was going to be walking the walk. We needed to exemplify this work ethic, but also celebrate it. Showing compassion during unpredictable and soul-crushing times became a pilot light for our work.
Ultimately, we feel deeply that our team is made of people who really want to do right by their clients — as a rule, we don’t work with folks who don’t take pride in their work. That means as business owners, we spend way more time reminding designers and project managers to do less and be mindful of their own capacity, and less time worrying about their productivity. Every day, we see designers pushing themselves to do better work than the day before, and we know that they are doing it because they’re passionate about what they’re creating — not because they’re worried about hitting meaningless time expectations.
Working asynchronously has become our superpower. There are no expectations about hours in front of your computer, just the knowledge that the work needs to get done within a certain time period. We even remind designers to avoid the temptation to build too far ahead and to heed client feedback before pursuing, making our team more efficient not only in their design work but also with their time.
I will always scream from the highest mountain that just because someone says you have to do it one way — or just because it’s been happening the same way since inception — does not write it in stone. This flexibility ripples through our company, and as a result creativity flourishes and we have a happy team and happy clients. We emphasize that there is always a solution, and the stress of today will be a distant memory next week. Taking a step back and reminding yourself that work is work but life is more important may seem at odds with productivity. But what’s the point of doing anything if you can’t take a moment to enjoy it with the people who help you grow?
— Mallory Ulaszek, co-founder/lead project manager
